T.X. Watson's Blog-shaped Thing

Yesterday, I had a bad day. I'm not going to get into what the specific events were that were involved but I almost had a panic attack around midday and spent the rest of the day feeling more anxious and afraid than I had in months.

It bled into today, and I expect it's going to keep bleeding out for a while -- both because the circumstances that caused it haven't changed, I've just had more time to get used to them, and because I was already in a pretty tightrope-ish place before it happened. I have a lot of assignments due this week, and I'd fallen behind on some important aspects of self care that I'm not likely to find the energy to work my way back on now.

The problem with letting my spoon meter slide and keeping my fucks-to-give meter up is that I run out of the ability to do the things I need to get done, while maintaining maximum emotional energy to be incredibly anxious about them. The problem with going the other way around is that that's what assholes do -- I don't want to hurt people just because I don't have the energy to be careful with their feelings.

'Course, if either one bottoms out, it takes the other one with it.

Sometimes it feels like I can manipulate them to get things done: if I don't have the spoons to get a task done because it's triggering too much anxiety, I can just let the bottom drop out my concern about the consequences and get through it by pretending that I'm not bothered by my inevitable inadequacy.

Sometimes they're kind of the same thing. Sometimes they're totally different. Often this metaphor breaks down completely and neither "idgaf" or "no spoons" expresses the nature of my lethargy quite right.

And I don't actually have access to a spreadsheet or a stat book that allows me to balance my energies with reference to known upcoming circumstances and a metagame understanding of my intended outcomes.

But right now I don't have the energy to get things done the old fashioned way (by not being mentally ill) so I'm going to be trying the next best thing: manipulating the bubble and flow of my not-really-comprehensible feelings to attempt to chuck balls of energy at the right tasks at the right times to keep things moving until I get my feet under me again. (Mixed metaphor level: maximum)